How to Dice an Onion...Who Knew There Was a "Right" Way??

Ok, my lovely cousins Tatum and Randi convinced me to use this blog as a recipe, cooking, budget eating (perhaps sometimes not budget…) forum as a way to supplement the personal junk I occasionally detail. So here goes…

In order to get the ball rolling, I’m plagiarizing…I mean, borrowing…I mean, crediting another blogger with this nifty tip for my first recipe (Tomato Bread Soup to come...). I learned this way in my first cooking class and it changed my life! Well, "changed" is an exaggeration, but it’s pretty dang cool.

(To quote Suzanne from http://teamsugar.com/group/152844/blog/212942:)
Step 1: Cut the top off the onion. The one that sticks up, not the root-y looking end.

Step 2: Stand the onion on the end that you just cut and cut the onion right down the middle of the root end. Take an onion half and peel back the skin, but leave it hanging on back there, because it gives you more to hold on to. Now cut the onion in half... cutting right through the roots.


Step 3: Lay the half on its side and make parallel cuts all the way around, but don't go all the way to the root end! (Emilie: My teacher described this to me as cutting “finger” lines in the onion.)


Emilie: I don’t see a picture of the next step…so here’s a more concise demonstration:
Step 4: Cut horizontal lines (parallel to your cutting board) almost all the way back to the root end. (Middle picture shown below)


Step 5: Now slice the onion through all the parallel cuts, and stop where your parallel cuts end. Discard this little bit... life's too short!

And there you have it! A perfectly diced onion... fast, neat, and easy... Use the back of the knife...not the blade to scoop them up. Doesn't dull the knife or cut your hand!


A vision of diced onion perfection!